


Tantibus

by Roturier



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: M/M, quick ref. to 'that month' and the non/com that went with it.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:44:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4765439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roturier/pseuds/Roturier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ciel Phantomhive has the world's worst nightmares. Still, the one he's living may well be the worst of them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tantibus

TANTIBUS *

They fell apart, their breaths rasping, wild. Then lay silent, waiting for their bodies to cool.

When they stopped panting like overheated hounds in some fruitless chase, the man reached out and gathered his little partner's near-weightless body, turned it and snugged it tightly against his own, like a pair of spoons nested in a drawer.

After a while, he pressed kisses into the damp hair below his chin and whispered: "Regrets?"

The little one stroked the sinewy forearms caging him and shook his head. "It's just as you said. We're already damned, we two. What harm could you do to me, or I to you? Best to snatch any joy we can salvage from this nightmare while we can."

"Mmm. Nightmare... here's hoping they'll have left you for now. At any rate, I will be here to wake you if needed. For tonight, at least."

The boy lay back again against the broad smooth chest, cinching the wiry arms around him even tighter, like a protective garment. "Yes, here's hoping... " But as he drifted off words his father once spoke in warning returned to him. A warning that such hopes have little effect on the real world beyond making us ill-prepared for dealing with reality.

Once asleep, the boy relaxed completely in his companion's arms and gave himself over to the world of dreams. And dreams came, but they were neither sweet nor soothing.

 

***

 

_Ciel's heart banged against his ribs so hard his own shirt front was visibly quivering with it. He was there again. There. In that room, amongst those monsters, without hope. Again. No Sebastian to the rescue this time; no God to hear his prayers. Perhaps because it was death he had prayed for?_

_In the centre of the room, the object of his terror, the focus of horror: a stone table that resembled an altar._

_Something was on it but—_

_He daren't look, dare not allow his eyes to linger lest he trigger the worst version of the nightmare. All versions revolved around the same theme: Ciel as sacrifice to call up the demon. But some versions of the dream were definitely worse than others._

_The human demons were there. The human demons were always there. Mostly they kept to the shadows, only their taunting voices heard calling him 'slut' and 'whore' and 'dolly' and worse, but the hands could come too, and the faces and... and other body parts as well._

_He knew his best move was to run. Run now, before they all converged, before the blood started, the blood and the shrieks. The blood spilling down, or worst of all, the blood that flew up and over, flying limbs parted from their owners, spraying bright red arcs of horror that rained down on everything and everyone._

_Run now, before the demon appeared._

_Yet he stopped dead in his tracks. Dead in his tracks without even beginning to run. This was very, very bad. Usually he at least got to run away. He knew if he ran the room would stretch out and out interminably and he would run and keep running for what seemed like forever while the voices cataloged his sins and detailed his guilt, a tiny Sisyphus, forever navigating his level mountain, pushing his guilt before him only to be compelled to return to do it again the next night—the next nightmare._

_But not this time._

_No, not this time. Not this time because he'd stopped. Because behind him, behind him he'd heard a sound. A new sound. Behind him, a chilling gurgle and a ripping. And the terrible ripping sound...came with a snap and a near voiceless keening, and the sound of something that was... was…_

_This was new, new and horrifying, not a part of the old dream, new and coming from atop the stone table. The stone table he'd died upon. The stone table he'd die on again, now, tonight if he didn't get his legs moving but too late, too late, far too late. Another chilling rip and a mad-sounding giggle of purest evil...and the sound of something...the sound of something noisily eating._

_He turned. Knowing he ought not, helpless to do otherwise._

_It was himself, his own dead body, lying there on the table. This was no matter of surprise. it was expected. It was always his body lying there in the dream. Lying slaughtered and offered up to the demon, a great, gaping red rent in his flesh right over his heart. As expected. But that the chest cavity would be ripped wide open, gutted like a carcass in an abattoir was not expected, nor blood everywhere or guts and organs strung out like raveled yarn, spilling over the edge of the altar in rude red and glistening purple festoons. It was both new and nauseating._

_And something was perched there, something perched atop the body, and that too was new. New and obscure, the detail hidden in living shadow. In the roiling darkness something sat clutching the remains, hands tipped in birdlike talons, and seething, wing-like shadows stretched out and over, raptor-like, mantling a catch, a predator stooped upon its prey, a bird with bloodied beak—no, a man with a bloodied mouth. And the unnatural, living darkness obscuring all, rendering indistinct the twisted, not-quite-human form it shrouded, the air alive with dark, down feathers._

_Then, the true heart of the horror revealed itself: the head swiveled slowly, the face turned to him and he finally saw, the form still obscure but the face all too painfully clear, his ultimate, personal horror: the bird-like, beclouded, bête noir was the demon— **his** demon, his own bound and faithful. trusted creature whom he himself had named for his beloved pet. It was his own demon rending his flesh and supping up the gore with a mad grin worthy of a retired reaper firmly fixed to his face. _

_"N-no...Sebas— no," Ciel moaned, struck down by the horror, the betrayal. The demon's claws dug deep into the small body, alternating, flexing, kneading the savaged flesh like a cat. It was feasting on internal organs, grinning with a wicked, red-daubed smirk—_

_\--and looking right into his eyes._

_Recognition lit up its face and the grin turned into a full-on smile. Black tipped claws ripped and tore, raking at the inside of the body, his—Ciel's— body. Sabre-like teeth glittered in the torchlight, gleaming white, pearlescent,  smeared with red as they gnashed the choicest bits of its prize, peeling loose a strip with its fearsome teeth. Another wet ripping sound, a mighty jerk and the heart tore free and was held aloft like a trophy. Long ropes of artery and vein ripped free along with it. Gore splattered the stone floor, a bit of tattered lung trailing in the filth._

_It paused._

_The demon paused. The constantly morphing, beclouded shape ceased its writhing contortions and grew still, peering at him. Its head tilted slowly to one side as though with curiosity, or the dawning of an enticing idea. A gore-tipped finger came up to curl over the tip of the chin in a gesture so 'Sebastian' the boy's heart and mind shattered together, leaving splintered pieces everywhere. A keening wail of despair rose softly on the air but the boy did not know it was his own._

_The demon's eyes crinkled in high humour at the boy's response. They flashed with a sudden bright glimmer of hellfire and then, then the beautifully sinuous body came clearly into view. It was sheathed in tight, supple, gleaming leather, dark as night, dark as its own treacherous nature. Muscles bulged and flexed; the creature began to move. The body rocked forward. Taut thigh lifted an impossibly long leg, shapely knee, tight-bunched calf, graceful ankle. Stepping down –feline, almost daintily- away from the corpse, then from the table, the gimlet-heeled boots scraped fire, ringing sharply on the stones, splashing through the pools of blood and, with its twin, bathing carelessly in gore. Never letting go of the dreaming boy with its eyes the creature slowed, crept closer, crouched, then drew nearer still, a grinning, stalking predator. The head tilted again in curiosity._

_"No ... Sebastian no," the boy keened, backing away, imploring desperately. "You don't want to hurt me now too, do you?" But the answer to that was all too obvious, especially looking at the demon's sharp red smile. In the face of that smile, the boy felt compelled to ask, "Are ... you no longer my Sebastian?" The thing's smile went flat.  
_

_"I was never 'Sebastian,' never yours." and it continued to creep closer, neither heeding the boy's tears nor his increasingly hysterical noises. This terror fresh and sharp; the boy had built no defence against it and so it completely unmanned him._

_Eventually, drowning in hopelessness and mortally tired, the boy simply stopped, fell silent and just waited, accepting the inevitable. He drank in his last look at the beautiful creature bringing him death. He had prayed for death once. At last a prayer answered! he smirked bitterly. He reminded himself it wouldn't matter what was done to his body once he was dead. He would neither see nor feel it and if it brought his demon pleasure… well, so much the better. He had laboured hard and long. He deserved his reward. Very soon all Ciel’s earthly concerns would be things he as well as his butler need never trouble themselves over any more. The thought helped. A little._

_The demon crept close, head still tilted in that deceptively benign look of curiosity. Suddenly the creature’s hand shot out and grabbed the boy by the throat, jerking him to his feet, then off them and up, up, until he was eye-to-eye with the demon._

_"...Mmmm yes, hurt you," it murmured seductively. "_

_Sebastian ..." No more pleas, just the name, the name the creature had denied, whispered softly, more to himself than anyone else. The boy tugged a little at the individual fingers wrapped around his neck like an iron collar, but his heart was no longer interested in resistance. The demon's other arm snaked behind the boy and drew him close. He dipped his face into the boy's hair and breathed deeply."Mmm, succulent, full of sin …mouthwatering, and **all mine,** " a sabre toothed smile-no, a show of fangs.  
_

_Ciel quivered. Tears spilled over his cheeks. "I wish you wouldn't hurt me," he choked out, touching the face before him, a familiar face but with eyes gone suddenly dark and hard, "but I suppose that would spoil it for you."_

_The demon grinned. “Why shouldn't I do as I please with you?" he rumbled, his voice gone rough with excitement. "You are mine. Twice bought and fought for far beyond your worth. And what is Meat for but to be eaten?" The boy nodded, choked, tried to say more but failed and instead laid his hands gently over the one at his throat. The demon angled its claws so they dimpled the flesh in the groove of the boy’s throat that marked the arteries. pathway, and then, smiling happily, he drove them home._

 

_  
_

_***_

_  
_

Ciel Phantomhive shot thrashing and scrambling out of sleep with a wheezing shriek, crying and clawing at his throat. The sudden movement brought Sebastian, who had been lying beside him instantly awake and reaching for the boy. But when he tried to touch him, to comfort him and keep him from falling out of bed, the boy backed away so fast he nearly shot right over the side. Sebastian caught him but paid for it with a pummeling.

The butler backed off, assumed a humble position, head bent, hand over his heart and asked "What is wrong Young Master? Why do you suddenly fear me touching you?" The boy stared at him a long moment, contemplating all the warnings his subconscious kept giving him in his dreams. In the end, he flung himself across the bed, winding his arms about his dark servant and only protector, his Sebastian, burying his face in the man's sleep-rumpled shirt, glad of whatever comfort there was to be had, never mind the source. The butler sat in the bed, cloaked in the velvet dark, holding the tiny body close. He tucked the duvet about him and pet the soft hair and damp, trembling back, trying to soothe the boy, and, for the most part, succeeding. But if Ciel could've stood apart from himself for just a moment and seen through the darkness the expression on his butler's face, eyes gleaming, softly illuminating the chilling smile he wore as he sat in the dark cradling and comforting his little master, Ciel Phantomhive would've likely been unpleasantly reminded of the demon of his dream. The one with the strong opinions about meat.

**Author's Note:**

> *The word Tantibus is Latin for nightmare, which is what this work also aims to be.  
> I've been told over on the other site it inspired a few nightmares in real life.


End file.
